6:10-18 These two kine knew their owner, their great Owner, whom Hophin and Phinehas knew not. God's providence takes notice even of brute creatures, and serves its own purposes by them. When the reapers saw the ark, they rejoiced; their joy for that was greater than the joy of harvest. The return of the ark, and the revival of holy ordinances, after days of restraint and trouble, are matters of great joy.

Verse 13. And they of Beth-shemesh. More exactly, "And Beth-shemesh was reaping its wheat harvest," the whole population being in the fields. Though a priestly city, we find in ver. 15 the Levites distinguished from the ordinary inhabitants, as though they and the priests formed only the ruling class. In the valley. Now called the Wady Surar, branching off into another valley on the south. Robinson ('Later Bibl. Res.,' 153) speaks of the site of Beth-shemesh as a very noble one, being "a low plateau at the junction of two fine plains." The wheat harvest takes place in Palestine in May, and consequently the disastrous battle of Eben-ezer must have been fought in the previous October.

And they of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley,.... Which began at Pentecost, in the month Sivan, about our May; so that there were many people in the fields, who were eyewitnesses of this wonderful event:

and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it; for though the ark while in the tabernacle was only seen by the high priest, when he went into the holy of holies; yet this having been brought out from thence, and exposed in the camp of Israel, some of this place very probably were there at that time, and had seen it, and knew it again by its form and splendour; and which gave them great pleasure to behold, which had been taken, and had been so long in the hand of the enemy, and the people of Israel deprived of it; which was the symbol of the divine Presence among them, and now restored to them again; and in this wonderful way, without seeking for it, without going to war on account of it, without paying a ransom for it; and was brought to them in a cart drawn by cattle without a driver, the lords of the Philistines with a large retinue following it. This is to be understood not of their looking "into" it, as they afterwards did, and were punished, as Kimchi; but of their looking "on" it.

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